Income taxes and the timing of marital decisions

In this paper we estimate the impact of the federal individual income tax on the timing of marital decisions. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the tax penalty often associated with marriage contributes to the decision of when to marry. Using household data from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics, we estimate various models of the probability of delaying marriage as a function of the change in tax burden caused by marriage (as well as several other variables). We find that there is a significant positive relationship between the marriage penalty in a year and the probability of delaying marriage until the following year. The magnitude of the effect, however, is small.